Former ministers charged with corruption not on the AKP’s list

ANKARA

HÜRRİYET Photo

The names of four former cabinet ministers who were accused in Turkey’s largest ever corruption probe are not on the April 7 candidate list of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).

Even if former EU Minister Egemen Bağış, one of the accused, had appealed to his party for a nomination, he would not be able to run for parliament due to an internal AKP rule barring politicians from being an MP for more than three consecutive terms. 

Two of the accused, former Interior Minister Muammer Güler and former Environment and Urban Planning Minister Erdoğan Bayraktar, had already made public they would not run in the June 7 parliamentary election.

Former Economy Minister Zafer Çağlayan, the last of the four former ministers embroiled in the corruption allegations, had also said he would leave politics at the same time.

Thus, none of them have actually appealed to their party to become nominees.

Çağlayan, Güler and Bayraktar resigned days after the eruption of the huge corruption scandal on Dec. 17, 2013, when police detained their sons and close business associates of the then-Prime Minister President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

Bağış was replaced by Erdoğan as part of a major cabinet reshuffle on Dec. 25, 2013. All four ex-members of the cabinet deny any wrongdoing.